Google provides two new ways for developers to push app updates

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Google has introduced two new ways for developers to push their app updates during the Android Developer Summit this week.

The ‘In-App Updates’ API provides features that Android coders have been requesting for some time, according to Google Senior Director of Android Product Management and Developer Relations Stephanie Saad.

Developers can now prompt users to update their app when they use it.

There are two ways of doing this: immediate, or flexible.

Immediate greets users with a full-screen message alerting them of the available update and that it must be downloaded before the app can be used.

Flexible allows users to continue using the app while an update downloads in the background. The developer can decide whether the app updates automatically once downloaded, or next time it’s opened.

“This is something that developers have asked us for a long time — say you own an app and you want to make sure the user is running the latest version,” said Cuthbertson to TechCrunch.

Google is currently testing the In-App Updates API in Chrome, according to Director of Engineering Aurash Mahbod.

All going well, Google plans to graduate the API to its Early Access Program “very soon”.

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